Daybreak
by gothgirl865
Summary: Isabella Mercer was a normal, 17 year old girl until that icy January day when her foster mother skidded on some ice and lost control of the car. When she woke up it was to find that she was in the world of Twilight. This is her story as she adjusts to being given a second chance in a world of fiction.
1. Chapter 1

Twilight Fan Fiction

Title: Daybreak

Daybreak

**Author's Note: Hey everyone! This is my first Twilight fan fiction and I would really appreciate some constructive criticism or just praise about what you all think! This chapter is un-betaed but if anyone would like to volunteer to be my beta reader that would be fabulous!**

**Chapter 1.**

I don't really know what happened. It's a little blurry, but I think there was a car. Yes, there was. I remember Debbie, my foster mother, was sitting in the front seat driving too quickly for such a slick, rainy day. The window was rolled down so she could dangle her cigarette out of it, and the icy January air was hitting me in the face. And Kenneth was in the back seat next to me. Kenneth, her son, who hit on me all the time, was leaning too close and breathing too heavily, and all I was thinking was how much I wished I was anywhere else on the planet. Then Debbie screamed, and the car skidded. We were on a bridge, weren't we? The last thing I saw was Kenneth's face. He looked like a toad with his eyes bulging out in fear, and his big double chin wobbling.

But that can't be right. If we went over a bridge, why am I still sitting in the car? Shouldn't I be dead, drowned? I opened my eyes and stared dumbly at the dashboard in front of me. "How…?" I breathed out. There wasn't a dashboard in the backseat of Debbie's car, only the back of her seat. Glancing up I stared in confusion. I was in the front seat now, but that wasn't even the strangest thing. I was staring at a long stretch of barren highway, surrounded on either side by the greenest trees I had ever seen. The sky was overcast and grey, and there was the threat of fog in the heavy sky. Little rain droplets were hitting the window.

Suddenly a movement to the left of me caught my eye. There was a strange man sitting in the driver's seat next to me. He had pale skin, short brown hair and a big handlebar mustache. He was probably around 40 years old, and I wasn't sure how I felt about being in a strange car in a strange place with this strange man.

The man squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, letting out a little groan. "Bella, are you alright?" he asked me.

Whoever this man was, he knew my name. I was still in too much shock to be scared of him, so I just nodded mutely. Thinking about the question, I realized that I actually did feel okay, despite whatever had happened to me. My head hurt a little bit, but maybe I just hit the dashboard?

"Alright, that's good," the man said. He chuckled, and continued with "Well, honey, I'm sorry that's the reintroduction you got to Forks. It was a darn moose, it just wandered out and I guess I swerved too hard. I think we should stop at the hospital and get checked out just in case."

What? Forks? Like the city in Washington state in the Twilight book series? And why is he taking me back to a house? Without waiting for an answer, the man restarted the car and pulled back out onto the highway.

"Well," he said into the silence I was leaving in the car, "It's probably a good thing I got you that truck. It can stand up to almost anything. An accident like this wouldn't phase it."

"Truck?" I asked. I couldn't really think of what else to do. Despite not knowing this man at all, I didn't feel like he was a danger to me. And trust me, growing up in foster care in downtown Washington D.C., you hone your danger-sense very quickly.

He shot me a glance. "Yeah, Bels, the one I bought from Billy Black down on the rez. You know, you used to hang out with his daughters Rachel and Rebecca a lot during the summer. He has a son too, Jacob."

I could feel my heart rate start to pick up. Billy and Jacob Black were characters in the Twilight books too. What was going on here? I don't know how long I sat in silence with a racing heart trying to stay calm about everything that was happening but I was pulled out of my thoughts by the man – Oh God, was this Charlie Swan? – parking the car in a spot right in front of a sign that said "Forks Hospital" in bold black letters.

I got out of the car and trailed after the man who I was starting to suspect really was Charlie Swan – a feeling only enhanced when I glanced back and saw that we had emerged from a patrol car. Inside the hospital my suspicions were confirmed when the woman sitting at the front desk greeted him with a hearty "Hello Chief Swan, what can I do for you today?"

He smiled and glanced back at me and said "Swerved to avoid hitting a moose, and the car ran off the road. I think we're both ok, but I wanted us to get checked out just in case."

The woman glanced back at me after Charlie said "we" and her eyes lit up in recognition. "Oh, is this your daughter, Isabella? I thought you were picking her up from the airport today…"

No. I'm not Bella Swan, am I? My name is Isabella Mercer, and shouldn't I be dead right now? Our car definitely went over the bridge. Oh my God, is this what death is like? You just become a fictional character?

"Bella!" Charlie snapped me out of my thoughts. "Come on, we're going back to see Dr. Cullen. He's the chief doctor and he's just going to check both of us out real quick and make sure we're okay."

Oh my God. Vampires. The Cullens are real in whatever whacked out universe I'm somehow in. This wasn't helping my heart rate, I could feel it hammering around inside my chest as my body automatically followed Charlie and the woman from the front desk down a hall into a large room with a couple chairs and a hospital bed next to some medical machines.

"I'll leave you two to wait here, Dr. Cullen will be in in just a minute," the woman said with a smile before exiting the room.

Charlie and I sat in silence. Charlie, from what I remembered from the books, was a pretty quiet man, and he didn't seem to expect that I talk to him, which suited me just fine. I was not in the mood to try and talk to a man who thought he was my father.

Probably after about five minutes the door knob turned and in walked a beautiful man. He was very tall, probably over 6', and he had collar length wavy blond hair and deeply golden eyes. He was undoubtedly gorgeous, but there was something unsettling about him. His skin was so pale, and beneath his beautiful black eyes were enormous, dark purple shadows. I knew this must be Carlisle Cullen. This revelation did nothing to calm my beating heart, and I was sure that there must be blood pumping very quickly and loudly throughout the rest of my body, but nothing in Carlisle's face showed that he was affected or concerned by it.

"Good afternoon, Chief Swan," he said. Then turning to me, he smiled and said "You must be his daughter, Isabella. Welcome to Forks. I'm sorry that the first thing you have to do here is come to the hospital."

I think I smiled back, but if I did it wasn't a very good one. Carlisle checked Charlie and I out very quickly but there didn't appear to be anything wrong. Charlie was totally fine except for a large bruise on his chest where the seatbelt cut into his skin, and I didn't even have the chest bruise, just a bump on my forehead from when my head hit the dashboard, but that didn't even hurt unless someone touched it.

We were back on the road to Charlie's house very quickly, and we rode in silence. My mind was blank on the way back, I couldn't begin to wrap my brain around what was happening. I was broken out of my non-thoughts when I felt the car turn and rumble into an uneven gravel driveway. I looked out the front window and saw a small, two story white sliding house. It had green front steps and a mahogany wood door and I loved it. It already looked so much more like a home than the little apartment I had shared with Debbie and Kenneth in DC, or any of the other foster homes I had lived in throughout my life.

I got out of the car and walked around to the back to help Charlie with whatever bags Bella would have brought with her from Phoenix – because I had to face it, I was somehow in Bella Swan's body and I was inside the Twilight books. As I grabbed two duffel bags (Charlie had the rolling suitcase and a red backpack) and turned around I saw the truck. It was beautiful, an older model with a huge cab that probably sat three and a little bed stretching out behind it. I loved it, and felt a huge surge of warmth towards Charlie. I know he hadn't bought the car for _me_, but for his daughter, but I couldn't help feeling as though he really cared about me. It was an alien feeling. I know foster care isn't all bad and there are some genuinely loving, caring families out there, but I was never lucky enough to land with one.

"I love it!" I gasped, turning to Charlie and smiling at him. "Thank you so much!" He looked away with an embarrassed smile and said, gruffly, "I'm glad you like it Bels."

It only took one trip to get all of Bella's stuff up to her room and I smiled the whole way through unpacking it. When Charlie yelled upstairs that pizza was here for dinner I was feeling a whole lot better about being stuck in an unfamiliar body in an unfamiliar world, but with a man who obviously cared about the girl he thought I was.

This happy feeling persisted until I caught sight of myself in a hall mirror, and almost screamed. The girl looking back at me was me, but different. I was still me, I had the same features as before, big eyes with long lashes, a small nose, and a mouth with the top lip a bit too thin and the bottom lip a bit too full. But I was different! My hair had always been long and layered, but I had dirty blonde hair with light blonde highlights from the sun. Now it was dark brown with just a hint of red highlights in it. My light brown eyebrows were a lot darker and my grey eyes were now brown. My skin used to be tanned and freckled with some acne on it, but this girl I was now looked like a doll. My skin was so pale now that it was almost translucent and I didn't have any acne or scarring at all. It was jarring. Where before I had looked like a healthy, all-American girl, now the combination of my dark hair and eyes and super pale skin made me look small, delicate, and almost sickly. I probably could have stood there for forever if Charlie hadn't yelled up the stairs "Bella, did you hear me? Pizza's here!"

Dinner was a quiet affair, thankfully. I suddenly wasn't in the mood to try and make small talk with a man I had met this afternoon when he had known the person he thought I was for her whole life. After dinner I quietly cleaned up the dishes while Charlie boxed up the leftover pizza. He half-heartedly asked if I wanted to watch some sports with him but seemed to be a little relieved when I said I was tired from traveling and just wanted to go to bed.

Up in Bella's room – I guess it was mine now – I got ready for bed and faced my reflection again in the bathroom mirror. On second glance it wasn't as shocking. Sure, it still didn't look like me, but I could definitely get used to it. And at least I wouldn't have to wear any makeup now that my skin was so clear!

Despite feeling a little better about everything I still started crying almost as soon as I crawled into Bella's big double bed with the lavender sheets and dark purple comforter. It wasn't that I was sad, or that I missed my old life and wanted to go back to it. I had been 17 years old for about a month and I was already looking forward to turning 18 so that I could get out of Debbie's house and away from Kenneth. My old life was crap. College wasn't an option unless I paid for it myself, which I couldn't do. I didn't really have any friends because I was the weird foster kid and I had just switched schools at the beginning of the year when I moved into Debbie's house. She never abused me, but she was just so neglectful and she never let me forget that she was only keeping me in her house so that she could get a check from the government.

But here, I could tell that Charlie cared about me. I presumably had a mother and a step-father somewhere in Phoenix, or Florida, or wherever it was that they lived. I was going to go to school tomorrow and meet a whole family of beautiful, incredibly rich vampires, I was child-hood friends with a family of werewolves, and everyone at Forks High had been so nice and friendly to Bella in the books, so I was probably not going to have any trouble making friends. This life was already about 20 times better than the one I had somehow left behind. So why was I crying?

I must've fallen asleep pondering that question because the next time I opened my eyes it was to a foggy, drizzly morning. Bella had a lot of jeans and cute shirts but she also had a couple cute dresses, and it was to those that my eyes were drawn. Even though it was chilly outside I still wanted to look nice for my first day so I grabbed a black mini dress with white polka dotted sleeves and threw it on over some thick tights and black rain boots. Since my new skin was so clear I didn't bother with any makeup other than a little mascara before going downstairs to eat breakfast before heading into my first day at a new school.

Breakfast, like dinner the night before, was quiet, and I loved it. After my crying jag last night I was feeling a whole lot better about this whole situation. I was feeling really nervous, but it was a good nervous, an excited-about-what's-to-come kind of nervous. Charlie left first to go to the police station so I finished my bowl of Cheerios alone in the kitchen. It was a cute kitchen, small and a little mismatched but well kept. There was an oak table with three mismatched chairs in the center. Along one wall were the counters and bright yellow cabinets. The walls were dark and paneled and the floor was white linoleum.

I finished my Cheerios and cleaned up after myself before throwing on my big green parka and venturing outside to drive my beautiful new truck to school. I had a map in the glove compartment, but after consulting it I realized I just got on the highway from yesterday and took a different turn off from it and the school was right there.

The only thing that made me stop outside a large collection of maroon buildings was the sign that said "Forks High School." My school from before was one large brick building surrounded by a chain link fence and security guards that patrolled it. I was never sure if they were supposed to keep people out or keep the students in. I had been to one other high school before but it was a private school from the family before Debbie and Kenneth. That one was also one big building but there was no fence because it was in a much nicer neighborhood than the public one I went to last. I liked the way this school was set up much better than my other two high schools.

I parked the truck in a spot in front of the building with a large number 1 posted on it. I was pretty sure this spot wasn't for students but Charlie said I was supposed to go pick up my schedule from the main office when I got here. Reluctantly, I got out of my warm truck and practically ran up the stone path into the building. Inside was a warm, brightly lit little office. It looked just like the main office at my school before: padded chairs lining the wall to form a little waiting area and a long desk with one woman sitting behind it. Behind the desk I could see a couple more closed doors which I assumed led to the offices of the administrators and counselor.

The woman behind the desk looked up at me when I entered. She was older, probably in her mid-forties, with red hair and a purple t-shirt on. "Can I help you?" she asked me.

"Hi, I'm Bella Swan, I need to pick my schedule up…" I trailed off. When I said my name a light of recognition flashed in her eyes and she began to dig through a pile of papers sitting on the desk.

"Of course! Here's your schedule, and a map of the school. I went through and circled your classes for you and highlighted the quickest way to get there. Have your teachers sign this slip that says you attended their class and bring it back at the end of the day. Have a great day, dear!" She handed the papers to me with a smile. I smiled back and went back out to my truck. By this time there were a couple more cars arriving, so I followed them back to a parking lot behind the buildings of the school. After I pulled into a parking spot I stayed in the car a little while longer, studying the map to figure out where my first class, English with Mr. Mason in Building 3, Rm 1 was.

I got out of the car and quickly figured out where building three was. It was identified in the same way building 1 was, with a large black number on a white plaque stuck up on the school building.

I walked quickly to get towards the building so that I wouldn't be stuck out in the cold, drizzly air too long. Just inside the building was a small hallway with a classroom on either side of it. I walked into my designated classroom and hung my coat up on one of the hooks inside like I saw two girls in front of me do.

I took the slip of paper up to Mr. Mason at the front of the classroom. He stared at me when he saw my name, but signed the slip and sent me back to a seat at the back of the classroom with the syllabus for the year. Despite sitting in the back of the room I could feel the stares of my classmates on me for the whole class. I didn't look at anyone and just tried to concentrate on the novel we were supposed to be reading during class today, _Wuthering Heights_. I had never read it before and the class was supposed to have up until Chapter 5 finished by the end of the week.

At the end of the class period a boy leaned across the aisle and asked me "You're Isabella Swan, right?" He was gangly and vaguely Asian. He looked like a chess club kid.

I nodded. "Just Bella is ok, though." I said, and he inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"I'm Eric. What's your next class?"

"Government with Jefferson in Building 6, Room 2," I said, checking the schedule sticking out of my backpack.

"I'm going to Building 4, but I can show you the way…" he trailed off.

He was being nice and helpful and I appreciated it, especially when everyone else was just trying to stare at me without being obvious about it. "Thanks," I said, smiling. We got our coats and walked back out into the drizzling wetness.

I would have been content to walk in silence, but Eric was clearly curious and wanted to know all about me. "So, this is a lot different than Phoenix, huh?" he asked.

I would have been curious and suspicious about how he knew Bella was from Phoenix, but in a town this small, and with a dad who was a well-liked and respected police chief it didn't seem odd that everyone would know where Bella was moving from.

"Yeah," I answered, even though I had no clue if it actually was different than Phoenix.

"It doesn't rain there much, does it?" he followed up with.

I shook my head. "Nope, it's pretty much a desert." That sounded right, anyway.

"Wow, what's that like?" he asked.

"Um… just really dry and sunny," I said. Again, no clue if that was true or not, but he seemed to know about as much about Phoenix as me, so if I was wrong he wouldn't know.

"You don't look very tan," he said, and I didn't really know how to respond to that, so I just shot him a look and didn't say anything. Despite the awkward atmosphere that had developed between us after his comment he still walked me right up to the door of Building 6, even though it was clearly marked.

"Good luck," he said. "Maybe we'll have some other classes together." He smiled at me, and turned around to go to Building 4. I thought he was nice in a kind of awkward way.

Government went pretty much the same as English had, as did my next two classes, Trigonometry and Spanish. Mr. Varner, my Trig teacher, was the only one who had me stand in front of the class and introduce myself. I wouldn't say that I was petrified of public speaking, but it does make me a little nervous, especially with all these kids I didn't know staring at me. But I made it through a quick little introduction ("Hi, I'm Bella Swan, I moved here from Phoenix") before I was allowed to go back and sit down.

I sat next to the same girl in both Trig and Spanish. Her name was Jessica, and I seemed to remember from the books that Bella didn't really like her. I liked her just fine though. We walked to lunch together after Spanish and she chatted with me about how I was liking Forks, and my classes, and whether or not people were being nice.

I found her easier to talk to than Eric had been, but I also think that the two of us just had more in common that Eric and I did, and she didn't say anything about my skin tone, so that helped. She assumed that I would be sitting with her and her friends at lunch, which I was grateful for. She introduced me to a tableful of about six people, but the only names I recognized were Lauren and Angela.

It was as I was sitting at the end of a table of curious strangers that I glanced up and noticed five beautiful people. I immediately knew that these must be the Cullens.

After seeing Carlisle at the hospital I had assumed that the younger Cullens would be just as beautiful as he was, and I was not disappointed. I could tell them all apart immediately. Emmett was enormous, probably at least 6' 5" with huge, bodybuilder muscles. But other than that he looked like a big teddy bear. His hair was dark brown and curly, and I saw dimples in his cheeks as he smiled at Rosalie, sitting next to him.

Rosalie was easily the most beautiful person I have ever seen in my life, even beyond the rest of the Cullens. Although she was sitting, I could tell that she had a tall, slim build, and her golden-blonde hair fell in silky ringlets down to the middle of her back. When she smiled back at Emmett I could see that her teeth were perfectly even and white, and her facial features were perfectly proportioned.

Across from her was Alice. She had always been described as pixie-like in the novels, but I had never realized how true that statement was. She was _tiny_, short and extremely thin with short, black hair that was spiked up in every direction, and small, but nevertheless perfectly proportioned, facial features. She should have looked like a child, but her choice in clothing and the way her hair was so artfully done up made it obvious that she was a young woman.

Sitting next to Alice was Jasper. He also looked very tall, especially next to Alice, but not taller than Emmett. He looked like a very scary angel, with his tall, leanly muscled body and a halo of honey blond hair curling gently around his face.

Edward was last. He was sitting at the far end of the round table, with no one across from him. He was the shortest of the guys, but I still thought he was over 6'. Bella hadn't been lying when she called him an Adonis. His hair was a beautiful bronze color, and was disheveled so attractively there was no way he didn't style it at least a little bit.

But through all their differences they had some similarities. Their skin was so pale, on par with Carlisle's skin from yesterday, they made me, even with my new translucent skin, feel tan. They also had the same purple bruise-like shadows under their eyes, which I could see even from across the cafeteria. On a normal person, I think the white skin and dark shadows would have made them less attractive, but on vampires it just enhanced their beauty, albeit in such a way that they all looked vaguely menacing and predatory.

As I was sitting there watching them, totally ignoring the conversation all around me now that I was thankfully not the focus, Alice got up from the table and walked over to the trash can in the center of the room. Although I think "walked" is a bit of a misstatement. She _danced_ her way over to that trash can, looking for all the world like a tiny fairy, where she threw away her tray, holding an unopened soda and uneaten apple.

I didn't really mean to say anything, but memories of not having enough to eat, and of the school lunch being my only meal of the day flitted through my head, and, staring straight at her, I muttered "Wasteful."

Of course she heard, and looked right at me. I froze. Before I had time to do more than stare at her with my mouth hanging open like an unattractive fish, she just gave me a curious look and then danced her way out of the cafeteria.

I looked back at the table where the rest of the Cullens were still sitting to see if they had noticed the exchange between Alice and me, but they were all still sitting there with their uneaten food and ignoring everyone else.

"….Earth to Bella!" I heard from my left and I turned to a slightly annoyed Jessica. "Are you ok?" she asked. "You were spacing! I said your name like three times."

"Sorry," I said vaguely, glancing back at the Cullens' table. Jessica followed my gaze, and said "Oh you noticed the Cullens, did you?"

As she said this, Edward suddenly flicked his head in our direction, looking first at Jessica and then me for a fraction of a second. It was the same type of response as if someone had called his name and he reacted involuntarily. Then I realized, that was probably exactly what happened; Jessica thought his name or something else similar and he heard it. Well I had been thinking all their names all lunch period and he hadn't noticed us until Jessica thought something so I think I was safe in assuming that he couldn't read my mind even though I'm a different person in Bella's body.

Turning back to Jessica I nodded. "Yeah. They're all very attractive." I said noncommittally.

"Edward is the one with red hair, Emmett's the big wrestler type, and Rosalie and Jasper are the two blondes. There's another girl, Alice. She must've left already. They're all Dr. Cullen's and his wife's foster children. Rosalie and Jasper are biological twins though, I think, and their last name is Hale, not Cullen."

We both looked over at them while Jessica was talking, and I could see that Edward was moving his lips very quickly, presumably talking to the other three even though none of them were looking at him. I felt a thrill of something as I realized Edward might be talking about me and my cloaked mind.

I nodded slowly as Jessica continued, in the lowered voice one used for gossip, "They're all together though. Rosalie and Emmett and Alice and Jasper I mean. And they _live together._" She sounded shocked and excited to be talking about it. Maybe it was because I was a foster kid myself, but it didn't strike me as weird. Obviously they weren't foster kids and weren't at all related, but even foster kids dating within families wasn't all that strange back in DC. It wasn't common, but it definitely wasn't like dating a biological sibling or even a step-sibling.

"It must be easy to hook up if they live together," I said. "Dr. Cullen and his wife probably leave them alone all the time." And okay, maybe I was looking for a little reaction from Jessica with that comment, but it was Emmett that I caught cracking a smile. I didn't know if it was because of me or something that one of the others had said, but it made me feel a little sense of pride.

Jessica didn't seem to know how to respond to that, so instead she said "I heard that Mrs. Cullen can't have kids, though," as if that was a bad thing and a reason to dislike the family. Suddenly I knew why Bella wasn't so fond of Jessica.

I frowned into my tray of food and took a bite of my watery spaghetti, ending that conversation.

Once Jessica realized I was done talking with her and she started up a conversation with the boy sitting next to her I looked up again, straight into the eyes of Edward Cullen.

He was blatantly staring at me, and I had to fight the urge to turn away to avoid awkward eye contact. But I fought it, and met Edward's gaze with what I hope was an expressionless face, until he finally looked away, with a slightly dissatisfied expression.

The four remaining Cullen's got up immediately after and left the cafeteria, all of them just as graceful as Alice had been. I have to admit, it was more than a little unsettling seeing big brawny Emmett walk with just as much grace as Alice was able to.

The group I was sitting with got up soon after and Angela offered to walk with me to Biology since we were in the same class. Neither of us said anything on the walk to class, her because she was shy and me because I was lost in thought about what to say to Edward when I met him next class.

When we walked into the classroom Angela broke off to go sit with her lab partner and I went to the front of the classroom to get my attendance slip signed by Mr. Banner. I glanced down the aisle trying to find Edward and saw him sitting by himself next to an empty seat.

As I walked by he shot up in his seat and glared at me. I saw his coal-black eyes and I think my heart just about stopped and all the blood drained from my face I was so scared. Black eyes mean hungry vampires, and I was his singer. Even though Edward had managed to not kill real Bella I was still terrified as I handed Mr. Banner my slip to sign. My heart was hammering in my chest, which was probably doing absolutely nothing to help Edward avoid killing me.

Mr. Banner handed me my book and syllabus and directed me towards the only empty desk in the room, right next to Edward. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and, heart still pounding away, walked slowly down the aisle and took my seat next to Edward.

I immediately pulled all my hair over my right shoulder so that the scent would be a little bit farther away from him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his fist clenched around the edge of the table. He was leaning as far away from me as he could and had his face averted.

Rationally I think I knew that Edward wouldn't kill me and that I shouldn't alert the vampires to the fact that I knew there was something weird about them, but I was so scared I couldn't think straight, and if Edward had been able to read my thoughts I don't think he would have even gotten any words out of it, only feelings of blind panic and terror.

Those feelings might explain what I did next. I glanced down at my desk, pulling out a notebook to start taking notes and just barely breathed "Stop breathing, stop smelling," just loud enough that only Edward would be able to hear.

I saw a movement in my peripheral vision that was probably him whipping his head around to stare at me, but I forced myself to not react, and just copied down the notes Mr. Banner had put up on the projector.

This first Biology class was probably the longest hour of my life, both because I didn't calm down from my first intense encounter with Edward and because he never said anything to me. I didn't notice any visible relaxation on his part, but he was sitting so still I doubted that he was breathing, although whether it was because I had told him to or because he would have done it anyway I didn't know.

Every so often I would peek at him out of the corner of my eye, and every time he was looking straight at me. It didn't look like he was angry, or about to eat me. He looked curious, which I guess was to be expected since I did tell him to stop breathing, which isn't something that is normally said to one's lab partner.

I was glad when the bell finally rang. I had started to develop a headache in the middle of class, but it seemed to disappear when I stood up to leave. Of course, Edward had shot out of his chair and was out of the room almost before the bell was finished ringing.

On my way to the door, I was intercepted by a cute boy with slicked back blond hair. He looked like one of the popular lacrosse players back home: tall, but not too tall, and I could tell he had a good body underneath the jeans and red long sleeve T with "Newton's Outfitters" printed on it.

"Aren't you Isabella Swan?" he asked.

"Just Bella," I said with a smile.

"I'm Mike." Aha. So this was Mike Newton. I was surprised I hadn't met him yet today, although, come to think of it, I think he might have been in my English class this morning.

"Hi Mike," I said.

"Do you need help finding your next class?"

"I actually just have Gym, so I know where that is. Thanks though," I said, consulting my schedule.

His eyes lit up. "That's my class too!"

So Mike and I walked to class together. He was a chatterbox, but was still interested in what I had to say, and the conversation we had about English class as well as how much both of us missed the sun (he had lived in California for 10 years) did a good job of distracting me from thoughts of Edward.

As we entered the gym though, Mike said artlessly "So did you stab Edward Cullen with a pencil or something? I've never seen him act like that."

"He's not always like that?" I asked, playing dumb.

"No," Mike said earnestly. "I mean, he's not going to win any awards for being nice, but he looked like he was in pain or something, sitting next to you."

I shrugged and began to walk towards the girls' locker room. Instead of breaking away to the boys' locker room, Mike followed me. "If I were lucky enough to be sitting next to you I would have talked to you."

I smiled vaguely at him and walked into the locker room.

Coach Clapp, a slender, obviously fit woman was the gym teacher. She helped me find a gym uniform that fit, and told me I didn't have to dress out today. But after everything that had happened, the last thing I needed to be doing was sitting still and dwelling on it, so I asked if I could dress out anyway.

We were currently doing volleyball in gym, which was fine. I could hit the ball pretty accurately when it came at me, and most of the time it went in the direction it was supposed to go. And it served its purpose in keeping my mind off of Edward and that terrible Biology class.

When the final bell rang I quickly changed back into my regular clothes and made my way to the main office.

When I entered the door I was presented with Edward's back. He was arguing with the receptionist in a surprisingly low, musical voice. It was incredibly attractive, and I wondered if it was because of his vampire nature or he just naturally had a lovely voice. He was asking her if there was any way he could switch out of our Biology class into a different one. I knew it was because of me, or rather, my scent and I didn't take offense.

I did clear my throat so that he would be aware that I was in here and that he should try not to breathe.

I don't think it worked because his arms stiffened at his sides and he turned around to glare at me with his terrifying black eyes. I wasn't as scared this time, probably because I'd been so frightened by him in Biology I just didn't have any energy left. And my headache from earlier was coming back.

He turned around again and muttered "Never mind, I can see that it's impossible. Thank you so much for your help," before glaring his way past me and out of the office.

I waited until he was completely out of the office before I walked up to the receptionist's desk to hand her my attendance slip.

"How did your first day go dear?" she asked me maternally.

I shrugged. "It was okay." I wasn't lying. Aside from the incidents in here and Biology, the day had really been perfectly fine. My headache had also vanished as quickly as it had come.

On the drive home to Charlie's I thought about what had happened today, and wondered how they would affect the events that took place in Twilight. Would Edward leave school for the rest of the week like he did in the novel, or would he show up? Although I hadn't meant to at the time, I had changed a lot of stuff already, what with my comments to Alice and Edward.

I sighed as I pulled into Charlie's driveway. I guess there's nothing left to do but wait until tomorrow to see what happens.

**AN: Well that's the first chapter! Please let me know what you guys think! I have a couple things I would like to say about this story as well. Firstly, I do not have it planned out at all, so if you have any suggestions or requests for things you want to see happen just let me know and I'll probably work them into the story! Secondly, I do not have a planned pairing for this story, although I would like for there to be one. I'm open to writing any pairing (or threesome or foursome, etc.) that you guys want to see so just let me know! I would really like for this story to be interactive on some level, with the things you guys request in reviews making their way into the story! Finally, I am in college and I'm very busy. So while I do promise that I won't abandon this story and I will finish it I can't promise any regular updating schedule. Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Hey guys! It's been an incredibly long time between last chapter and this chapter, and tbh it's probably going to be a long time between this chapter and the next chapter. Such is the life of a college student. I hope you enjoy Chapter 2!**

**Chapter 2**

When I'd gone to bed the night before I had fallen asleep to worrying thoughts about what was going to happen to me and how I'd changed the future from what it was supposed to be, but when I woke up I felt refreshed. Whatever this weird new life threw at me I could totally handle it. Vampires? No problem! Werewolves? Piece of cake! Hell, you could probably show me witches who could control the elements and I wouldn't bat an eye. Although, come to think of it, I wonder if there are people who can use magic in this world. There weren't any mentioned in the books, but the books were so focused on Edward and Bella's relationship there wasn't much room for anything else.

My good mood persisted through my morning classes. In English we had another reading day, so I got about half a chapter of _Wuthering Heights _in. In Trig Mr. Varner called on me and I had the right answer. When Jessica and I walked into the cafeteria for lunch my gaze immediately slid over to the table the Cullens had been at the day before. There was no one sitting there yet, and Mike had come over to shepherd Jessica and I to a table full of his friends. I forgot about the Cullens for the moment, as we sat down and I was introduced to the people sitting at our table I hadn't yet met.

Probably 10 minutes into the lunch period I suddenly remembered the Cullens again, and my worry-free mood of the morning dimmed. I was nervous about what Alice would make of me watching her so intensely in the cafeteria the day before and worried about what Edward would have told the others about what I said to him in Biology yesterday. But it seemed as though I didn't need to worry. Jasper, Alice, Rosalie, and Emmett were sitting at their table. Edward was missing. No one was paying any attention to me.

I concluded that Edward must've gone to wherever it was he went in the novels – probably Alaska to hunt or run from me or both. When I thought about it, maybe Edward hadn't even really realized what I'd said to him yesterday. I mean, from the looks of him he was just trying so hard to not murder me that maybe he just thought he hallucinated it. If he'd thought I was a real threat I'm sure he would have told his family and either me or them would not be sitting in this school right now.

Lunch ended, and I walked to Biology sandwiched between Angela and Mike. Bio and gym were both uneventful and after I'd changed back into my leggings and yellow t-shirt I walked slowly through the school grounds and parking lot to my car.

Last night I had finished unpacking all of Bella's things and had discovered some gift cards to a couple stores in her wallet, probably left over from Christmas or a birthday. Cash I was good about saving – you never knew when you would actually _need _to have money for something. But gift cards were guilt free. You could only spend them at a specific store and couldn't ever exchange them for cash.

So, with my new gift cards, worth probably around $200 for Barnes and Noble (predictable), Target (practical), and Victoria's Secret (I couldn't imagine it being anything other than a joke gift for someone like Bella) I pulled out onto the highway and drove to the large shopping plaza located about halfway between the school and the house. As chance would have it, this particular shopping plaza had all three stores I had gift cards to, as well as half a dozen others plus a couple casual restaurants/coffee shops and a big Thriftway grocery store. It was also the only shopping center within an hour and a half of Forks, so it was pretty lucky that it had all the stores I needed.

I decided to go into Victoria's Secret first, because all of Bella's underwear looked like it had been purchased in a three-pack at Walmart, and her bras were all monotone and boring. I didn't know when someone was going to be seeing me in my underwear, but hopefully it would be sometime soon, and I wanted to be prepared.

I swung myself out of the trunk and crossed the parking lot to the store. Inside I was instantly overwhelmed by the sultry scent that all the stores seemed to have. I drifted over to the bargain bin of 5 for $25 panties, already having decided I was getting five pairs of cheap underwear and two nice, sexy bras.

I was examining a red lace thong when I heard a sharp peal of musical laughter over to my right, where all the expensive lingerie sets were located. I looked up at the sound automatically, and saw the last two people I had expected to see in this tiny little store. Alice Cullen and Rosalie Hale were standing together looking at a deep green satin bustier and thong set. It was something I could never hope to afford or look good in, but either of them would have looked magnificent in it.

The rational part of me knew that I shouldn't draw any more attention to myself than I already had, especially with Rosalie. I knew she disliked the real Bella, and I had no reason to believe that the situation was any different now. The illogical, emotional part of me wanted to run over to them and demand to know what Edward had told them and what they knew about me – what Alice had seen about my future.

I was saved from having to decide which impulse to listen to when Alice glanced up and saw me looking at them. I retained enough awareness to smile and wave at them but all thoughts of confronting them vanished from my head and I resolutely turned back to the underwear I was examining. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a figure approaching me, though, and I looked up from the panties into Alice's gorgeous elfin face.

"Hey," she said to me. "You're Bella Swan, right? The chief's daughter?" I had no doubt that Alice knew all this already, but was phrasing it as a question so that I didn't get unnerved by her.

I smiled weakly and nodded. "I got here on Sunday, yesterday was my first day at school."

She smiled back at me and said "Well, welcome to Forks."

She made a move like she was going to turn away, but I abruptly said "Wait!"

I really wanted to know what Edward had told the others about me and whether or not I needed to be worried about anyone doing anything to me. Alice was looking at me with her big eyes and I couldn't think of a subtle way of asking about Edward without actually asking about Edward so I ended up just blurting out "Did Edward say anything about me?"

Something changed in Alice's expression but I didn't know what she was thinking so I charged ahead with "It's just that we sit next to each other in Biology and he looked pretty… sick yesterday and I think I was really, um… bothering him?"

My sentence trailed off into a question. While I was speaking Rosalie had strode over to us, and she was the one who answered shortly "No, Edward hasn't said anything about you."

Well, if her tone of voice was anything to go by, Rosalie certainly didn't like me-as-Bella any more than she had liked Bella-as-Bella.

I gave them both a tight smile and said "Oh, well, ok. Tell him I hope he feels better soon."

Alice nodded and waved to me before Rosalie shepherded her out the door. I paid for my things and got back in the truck to drive home. I suddenly didn't feel like shopping anymore.

On the drive home I replayed the conversation over in my head. Rosalie clearly disliked me, or else she was like that with everyone, which was possible I suppose. Alice had seemed interested in me, but not wary. I don't think she would have acted the way she did if Edward had told her that I knew he should stop breathing my scent in.

Pulling into the driveway I sighed and put it out of my mind. Edward would probably be back in school as soon as he had himself under control and I could talk to him then.

Charlie wasn't home yet when I unlocked the front door so I put my new underwear away and changed into sweatpants before booting up the computer sitting on the desk in my room. I decided to check Bella's email to get a sense of her life. Luckily, I had found a crisp sheet of notebook paper in a drawer of Bella's desk that had her username and password for her email written out in cramped, slightly messy handwriting. I assumed that when Bella had first gotten her email she had needed to remind herself of how to access it and neither she nor Charlie had ever cleaned out the desk.

Bella's inbox had only three emails, and all of them were from her mother.

_Bella, _

_Write me as soon as you get in. Tell me how your flight was. Is it raining? I miss you already. I'm almost finished packing for Florida, but I can't find my pink blouse. Do you know where I put it? Phil says hi._

_Mom_

The second and third messages were reiterations of the first, and the last one had a threat to call Charlie if I hadn't responded to her by 5:30pm today. It was only 3:16, so I had a couple hours.

_Mom,_

_Sorry I waited so long to email you back, I've just been really busy with starting a new school and unpacking and everything. The flight was fine. It's been raining pretty much non-stop since I got here. I miss you too! I have no idea where your pink blouse is, have you checked the laundry or my room? Tell Phil I say hi too._

_Bella_

I hit send. I decided not to tell her about the car accident and the hospital because she seemed like the kind of person to call here even if I said I was alright to make sure I was actually alright, and I had absolutely no desire to talk to a woman who thought she was my mother. Charlie was easy, he didn't like talking and since he and Bella didn't know each other that well I was pretty much free to be myself. Renee would know if something was up, and I didn't feel like dealing with that.

Email taken care of I pulled out my trig homework and started working on it. I had finished it and was trying to get through more of _Wuthering Heights _when I heard Charlie's car crunching over the gravel in the driveway. Glancing at the clock I saw that it was about 5:30. I rolled off my bed and headed downstairs into the kitchen.

I met in the hallway as he was hanging up his gun belt and slipping his shoes off.

"Hey," I said. "I was going to make some pasta for dinner, do you want any?"

It was pretty clear that Charlie did not do the home cooked meal thing some of my foster families had done. Luckily, I didn't always get dinner handed to me so I knew how to fend for myself.

"Sure, pasta sounds great!" he said, and went into the living room, where I heard the TV click on.

I put a pot of water on to boil and sat down at the table to keep reading. Pasta was a simple dish to make, and it was ready after about 20 minutes. I stuck some butter, salt, and pepper in for flavor and dished out a couple bowls.

In the living room Charlie was watching hockey. He gave me an appreciative smile and a "Thanks, honey," when I handed him his bowl. I slumped down on the end of the sofa and pulled my feet up, fully intending to have another silent dinner with Charlie watching TV, but to my surprise he turned the volume down and looked over at me.

"How'd school go today?" he asked. "Are you making any friends?"

"School was good today," I said, and I was being totally honest. "This one girl Jessica is in two of my classes and we sit together at lunch. She's nice, for the most part. And I have Biology and gym with this guy Mike, he's pretty cool too."

"Mike Newton?" Charlie asked, and I nodded. "Yeah, he's a newcomer too. His parents moved here with him from California about six years ago. They own a sporting goods store in town."

"I met some of Dr. Cullen's kids too," I said. "I sit next to Edward in Biology, but he wasn't here today. And I ran into Alice and Rosalie after school. We were in the same store."

Charlie nodded approvingly. "Dr. Cullen's kids are great, they're all well behaved and polite. I was a little worried when they first moved here, with all those teenagers, but I haven't had any trouble with them."

I got the feeling that Charlie had thought he was going to have problems with them because they were foster kids, not because they were teenagers, and my stomach did an uncomfortable little flip-flop. People always assumed the worst about foster kids.

Charlie did the dishes since I had cooked, and I went back upstairs to finish my Spanish homework. I was asleep by 10pm.

The rest of the week was uneventful. I got up, went to school, came home, did homework, went to bed. Edward did not make an appearance at all, and the rest of the Cullens ignored me. I didn't really feel like going out that night, so I went to bed early and woke up at 8am. It took me a couple seconds to realize why it was so light in my room until I realized that bright sunlight was streaming through my bedroom window. This was the first day it had been sunny since I had been in Forks and I needed to take advantage of it.

I practically leapt out of bed and threw on some jogging clothes. There was a beautiful forest that backed right up to Bella's house (it must be the one where Edward broke up with her in _New Moon_) and I had been wanting to explore it for the week I'd been here, but I hadn't wanted to trek through mud in the pouring rain.

It felt so good to be outside. Running had always been something of an escape for me. Being in foster care was never easy for me. Unfortunately, many of the families I ended up with wanted a cute, smiley, happy little girl. Due to the circumstances that tend to get kids stuck in foster care in the first place, most of us are pretty far from perfect, myself included. When I was just a kid I couldn't really do anything to escape the families' anger at me not being perfect, but when I got to high school I joined cross country and that was it. I found what makes me feel better and gets my aggression out.

Since this was my first time in these woods I stuck to the path. I really didn't want to get lost and have to call Charlie to come find me, especially since I wasn't sure that I even got reception in the woods. Charlie's house was already at the edge of Forks, and as I ran the knowledge that I was getting farther and farther away from civilization gave me a sense of peace.

After I'd been running for about thirty minutes, probably around two or three miles, (I was relieved I still had my endurance and stamina as opposed to Bella's) I slowed down to lean against a tree and catch my breath. I didn't really want to head back to the house yet and be faced with my boredom or the prospect of doing homework on a Saturday so I ventured further into the forest.

I found that the farther I walked the quieter the forest got. It was almost like there was something in the woods that the animals knew they should be frightened of and they made sure to keep quiet. If I'd been in the forest when it was dark or stormy I probably would have taken this as a bad sign and hightailed it out of there. But it was a cool, sunny Saturday morning and it was impossible to be frightened of anything right now.

The path I had been following (though path is probably a misnomer – I had really just been running along a small bit of dirt that didn't have trees or grass growing on it) ended at this point. I still wasn't ready to go home so I decided to venture out into the woods.

I followed a bunch of big landmarks – funnily shaped trees, large boulders, etc. – so that I would be able to find my way back to the path easily. After about probably ten minutes of aimless wandering I stumbled to the edge of the tree line. I was standing on a small cliff, and probably around twenty or so feet down was a big house sitting in a valley. I was facing one of its sides, with the front to my right and the back to my left.

It was a large, graceful looking house. It was rectangular and painted a faded white color, and looked to be about three stories tall from the window placement. There was a deep porch that wrapped around the front of the house. To the front of the house I saw a long, winding, gravel driveway that probably led out of the woods onto a main road so that whoever lived here could get into town. There were no cars parked in the driveway, so there was either a garage on the other side of the house that I couldn't see or there was no one was home. On the back side of the house there was a large river flowing, but I had no idea what its name was.

I admired the house for a couple more minutes, wondering who was lucky enough to live in such a gorgeous place before I turned around and found my way back to the path where I ran home.

The rest of the weekend was boring. On Sunday it was back to raining again and I didn't feel like running in the cold, wet rain so I just stayed at home all day. I read a little and did all my homework. By the time Monday morning rolled around I was glad because it meant I had somewhere to go and something to do.

The school day started out normally enough. People said hi to me in the parking lot and I was able to recognize almost everybody. In English Mike sat next to me, as he had started to do the week before, and we had a pop quiz on the first five chapters of _Wuthering Heights_ that seemed pretty straightforward if you'd read the book.

When we walked outside after the class the air was filled with little tufts of white. "It's snowing!" I beamed at Mike. I love the snow. Something about making snow angels and building snow men makes me feel so happy and innocent. Like I'm a kid again, I guess.

He grinned down at me, obviously noticing my enthusiasm for the weather. "Do you like snow?" he asked.

"Mike, I love snow so much. You don't understand. Oh my God!" I threw my hands up and turned to look at him.

"Where are the best places to go sledding? It's been so long since I've been sledding!"

He chuckled at me. "Yeah, I guess Phoenix doesn't have that many sledding opportunities."

"What?" I looked at him in confusion. Phoenix? "I never lived – " I cut myself off. I didn't live in Phoenix but Bella did. "Oh yeah. Phoenix was… there wasn't a lot of snow there."

Mike gave me a weird look, which was only fair after I tried to deny living in Phoenix.

"Are you feeling ok, Bella?" he asked.

I was saved from answering when a snowball smacked him in the back of his head. We both looked over at where the ball had come from. Eric was hunched over walking away from us, and I'm pretty sure that he was the one who had thrown it. Mike evidently had the same idea I did because he was bent over gathering snow to lob back at Eric. So, I made my escape.

"Bye, Mike!" I called to him, walking towards my next class. "See you at lunch!"

He barely gave me a grunt of acknowledgement, his eyes still on Eric's retreating figure.

For the rest of the morning all anyone could talk about was the snow. From what I gathered it was the first snow fall of the year, so I understood their enthusiasm. On the walk from Spanish to the cafeteria there were snowballs flying everywhere, and I kept my hood tight around my face in the hopes of preventing snow from getting inside.

Jessica thought I was hilarious for disliking snowballs, but clearly thought it would be funnier to wait to throw a snowball at me until we were in the doorway of the cafeteria and I had taken my hood off.

That's how Mike found us moments later. Jessica was doubled over laughing hysterically and I was standing there, probably pouting, with wet hair and snow making its way down the back of my shirt.

"Hello ladies," he greeted us, shaking his wet hair all over us. As we got in line to buy food I think Mike was telling us about a big snowball fight he wanted to organize in the parking lot after school was over but I had stopped listening.

Out of habit I glanced over at the Cullens' table again, expecting to be greeted with the two couples. But today there were five vampires sitting at their little round table. Edward was back.

To my surprise I was feeling a little nervous about interacting with him today. I think mostly it was due to the fact that I didn't know what he was going to say or do today because I had already changed the course that the novel was set on when I got here. But there was definitely another part of me that was nervous to be around him because I knew that he and Bella ended up together. I didn't like the idea that I was supposed to end up with a specific person, especially someone with all the problems that Edward had.

Lunch passed without incident. The one time I glanced over at the table where the Cullens were sitting, Emmett was shaking his wet hair out all over everyone. They looked like they should've been in a magazine or a movie, not an actual high school cafeteria.

Like always, I walked to Bio accompanied by Mike and Angela. Sometime during lunch the snow had changed into freezing rain and Mike kept up a string of complaints the whole walk. Angela and I were content to stay quiet and let Mike rant. In the class room the three of us broke off to go sit and I walked over to where Edward was already sitting with only a little trepidation.

I nodded to him as I sat down, and pulled my hair over my right shoulder again to get my scent a little bit farther from him. I was comforted to notice that his eyes were a beautiful light golden color – no hungry vampires in biology today!

"Hello," he said, and I was struck by how beautiful his voice was. It was low and musical and very soothing. "I'm Edward Cullen. I didn't have a chance to introduce myself last week. You're Bella Swan, right?"

It was a little jarring having him be so polite to me after he had been so freaked out last week. I was looking at his hands though, and they were clenched around the desk and I noticed that he was still positioning himself as far away from me as he could, so clearly I was still bothering him a little. But if he was going to make an effort then so was I.

"Yeah," I said, smiling at him. He seemed at a loss for what to say to me next, and I wanted to know what he remembered from the previous week so I kept on talking. "Hey, were you feeling ok last week? You looked pretty uncomfortable during class and you basically ran out of here."

"Oh, just a little under the weather," he replied. He gave me a searching look but didn't seem inclined to bring up how I had told him to stop breathing so I figured he had attributed his hearing that comment to the bloodlust or hunger or some other vampire-y thing.

Mr. Banner took that moment to start class. Today we would be identifying the different phases of mitosis using onion root tips. The slides were out of order and we had to put them in order and label them on a piece of paper. We had twenty minutes.

"Would you like to go first?" Edward asked me.

I shrugged and pulled the microscope closer to me to have a look at the first slide. To be honest, all these dumb cells looked pretty similar to me so I decided to start at the beginning of the process and go with prophase.

"Prophase," I said as I pulled my head up to look at him. He was staring at me intently, and it was just a little creepy. I guess he was just trying to figure me out seeing as he couldn't read my mind and all but it was pretty weird.

"Do you mind if I take a look?" he asked me finally. Gratefully I slid the microscope closer to him. I was starting to get a headache and wouldn't have minded him doing the rest of the work at this point.

"Prophase," he agreed after looking at the slide for maybe a second. He wrote it down and I noticed that his handwriting was beautiful. He snapped the second slide into place and again glanced at it for barely a second. "Anaphase," he murmured quietly, already writing it down.

He grabbed the third slide and started to snap it in place before stopping and glancing at me. "Would you like to do this one?" he asked politely.

Honestly I did not feel like looking at any more slides. "No it's ok," I said, rubbing my forehead. "I'll double check you."

He glanced up at my forehead with an expression of concern on his face before nodding and turning to the microscope. "Interphase," he said confidently, before sliding the microscope over to me. I bent and looked at the cell. It looked like it wasn't in the process of dividing so interphase was probably right.

"Yeah, interphase," I confirmed. I was a little miffed to see that Edward had already written it down without waiting for me to confirm, but I suppose with as much schooling as he's had he can be trusted to identify an onion root cell correctly.

We finished the next two slides pretty quickly. I managed to correctly identify the next slide as metaphase and he said the last one was telophase. We were the first pair done with the lab and we still had about ten minutes before Mr. Banner was coming around to check our answers. This gave us nothing but time to talk.

I didn't really feel like talking because my headache was starting to get more severe, but Edward apparently had other ideas. "It's too bad about the snow," he said.

"Yeah, I guess," I said. I massaged my forehead with my fingers and kept talking. "I like snow as much as the next person, but I don't like snowball fights and that's what everyone wanted to do in the parking lot after school today. So I'm kind of glad I don't have to worry about that now."

I glanced over at him and noticed that he was staring. "What?" I asked, maybe a little rudely but my head hurt!

He seemed a little startled by my abrupt tone but still managed to sound totally cool and collected when he said "Is your head ok? You keep rubbing it."

"Yeah, it's fine," I sighed, pulling my hands down to my side. "It just hurts a little bit."

"In what way?" he inquired politely.

"It feels like there's like, a wall in my brain or something, and someone is trying to break through…" I trailed off. It felt like someone was trying to break into my brain. Edward was probably trying to read my mind right at this moment. Could it be that because I was aware of the mind shield that Bella had that I could feel Edward trying to break through it? Now that I was thinking about it I had only gotten headaches when he was around. And I had never been one to get headaches before I ended up in Forks.

Maybe if my head hadn't been hurting I would've held my tongue, but I didn't. I stared at Edward and whispered viciously, "It's you! Stop trying to get into my brain, it hurts!"

He looked very surprised and must've stopped trying to get inside my head because the pain in my head immediately receded. Realizing what I had just blurted out to a vampire I started to stammer some excuses, but Mr. Banner chose that moment to come up to us to check our answers for the lab.

"So, Mr. Cullen, you didn't think Isabella should get a chance to identify any of the slides, did you?" he asked loudly, clearly referencing the fact that Edward's handwriting was the only one on our worksheet.

Edward reluctantly pulled his gaze away from me and looked at Mr. Banner. "Bella identified two of them."

"Alright, then," Mr. Banner said skeptically. He collected our paper and walked to the front of the class. Edward looked like he was about to start asking me some questions I really didn't want to answer but Mr. Banner had started to lecture about the answers to the lab and explain the ways to identify the phases.

I didn't let myself look away from Mr. Banner as he used the overhead projector to illustrate the phases. I didn't want to try and explain myself to Edward and I had to take notes on mitosis anyway since I still didn't really understand it.

To his credit, Edward didn't try to get my attention, and when the bell rang at the end of class he was the first one out of the door.

I supposed it was too much to hope for that he would chalk up today's weird comments to bloodlust hallucinations as well. I was spared from thinking about what my next move with the Cullen family was by the appearance of Mike next to my desk.

"Wow, that was pretty hard, huh," he said. "They all looked exactly the same to me!"

"Yeah, you're telling me! I'm glad Edward was my partner, he seemed to know them pretty well," I said enthusiastically.

"Cullen seemed friendly enough today," Mike said, maybe a little sullenly, as we walked back out into the rain.

"Oh, yeah," I agreed. I didn't want to talk about Edward Cullen so I quickly turned the conversation to my disappointment in the lack of snow. Mike forgot Edward as we talked animatedly about our disappointment at the quick disappearance of the snow on our way to the gym.

As much as I tried to concentrate on volleyball in gym, I was distracted by thoughts of Edward, and Mike had to cover both my position and his.

When gym was over I changed quickly and headed out to my car. I was standing at the door of my truck trying to fish my keys out of my bad when I saw someone move next to me. Assuming it was Mike or Jessica, I turned to them with a smile on my face. It quickly fell when I saw who was actually standing next to me, casually resting his hand on my truck.

"I really need to speak with you," Edward Cullen said.

**AN: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy my nice little cliff hanger, especially because I wouldn't be surprised if it's another five months before I update again. Please leave me reviews on this, because it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! Of course, reviews where you praise my writing style and tell me you want to send me your first born child in gratitude are my favorites, but even if you just want to leave me a review telling me to stop being so lazy and update soon I'll take it! Until next time, my lovely readers!**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: I'm not dead! Here's chapter 3, please enjoy!**

**Chapter 3**

Edward Cullen, a _vampire_, was standing next to my car telling me we needed to talk. Ok, no big deal. He probably just wants to talk about onion root tips, right? He's definitely not going to bring up the fact that I told him to stop reading my mind.

I think being next to him was making me a little giddy, because I immediately plastered the biggest, probably stupidest-looking smile on my face. "Sure, what's up?" I said, and then immediately cringed. My voice sounded brittle and afraid, which was not the impression I felt like giving Edward right now.

"Why did you tell me to stop trying to get into your brain?" he asked, and he really just seemed genuinely curious.

"Um…" I said, pretty obviously stalling for time. He seemed content to wait for me to say something though, and it was pretty uncomfortable with him just serenely staring at me so I just said the first thing that popped into my head.

"Um… well… some people can just do things, you know? Like, special things? I just kind of know things, and you can like, see into people's heads? Read minds or something? Maybe you just can't read mine because you're not supposed to know what I know!"

I have to say, it sounded like a pretty good excuse to me. Of course, knowing Edward he was probably just incredibly curious about what else I knew.

"So you're a clairvoyant? Fascinating. What else do you know about me?"

Can I say called it? I did notice that Edward's question was a little clipped, as if he had just stopped himself from saying "what do you know about me _and my family?_" I was pretty sure he was referring to his vampirism, because I don't think there was anything else about him that was such a big secret.

"Nothing," I said with a shrug, and I was pretty impressed with how even my voice came out.

"Really?" he asked sarcastically. "Then why did you know that I needed to stop breathing and smelling last week?"

Oh, fiddlesticks. Of course that was going to come back and bite me in the butt.

"I… don't know what you're talking about. I mean, I know I'm a pretty unusual person but even I try to avoid telling people to stop breathing. You were pretty sick that day. Maybe you just thought you heard me say it?" Yeah, that was a pretty weak excuse. If he falls for it, Edward really is an idiot.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "I don't believe you."

"Yeah, probably a smart call on your part. I've been told I'm not a good liar. Would've been embarrassing for you if you fell for it." And I was rambling again. Fantastic.

"Tell me what you know." Wow, he was pretty serious. Although I guess if I was a supernatural creature and some rando human knew secret stuff about me I'd be pretty serious too.

I sighed. "Fine, but can we talk somewhere warmer? It's very cold and wet out here." I started to turn back to my truck before he answered, just assuming we could inside the cab.

"Erm…" I turned back around at the sound of Edward's voice. "Could we use my car?" he asked.

I raised my eyebrows. "Do you have something against Big Red?"

"I… wait did you name your truck?" he asked me, looking confused. He didn't give me a chance to answer, just shaking his head, before he said "No, it's not that. It's just that my car is… safer."

Ok, someone has a car-superiority complex. I rolled my eyes at him but started walking over to the grey Volvo that was one of the only cars left in the parking lot.

It was a fancy car, with keys that beeped it unlocked, and I threw my backpack in the back seat before settling in to the front. I had a feeling that Edward was going to want to drive somewhere when we were done talking, otherwise he probably wouldn't have made such a big deal about us sitting in his car instead of mine.

When Edward was situated in the driver's seat beside me and the heat was on full blast he turned to look at me.

"What else do you know about me?" he asked seriously, intently staring at me.

"Vampires. You and your family are vampires."

He sighed. "I was afraid you would say that."

"What, why?" I said. I mean, I know that the Volturi or whatever have a rule about humans not being able to know about vampires, but me knowing wasn't really anyone's fault. I mean, I read a book, and then I woke up inside said book. There's not really anything that anyone could have done about it.

"Well, humans knowing about vampires is a safety concern normally. We obviously keep the fact that vampires even exist a secret. I would guess that since you're clairvoyant there's not really anything we can do about that…." He trailed off, and I could sense that there was more that he wanted to say.

"But?" I prompted him.

"But I'm not the best person to make a decision about what we do now," he said. "I'm going to take you back to my house. I want you to meet the rest of my family and tell them what you told me. We don't keep secrets."

I couldn't help myself. "Well of course they can't keep secrets around you," I scoffed.

Edward started to get a tormented look in his eyes and I immediately felt bad. I'm sure he didn't want to have to see what his family was thinking all the time. That has to be hard.

"Hey," I said, laying my hand on his jacket covered arm. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by that. Why don't you just take us to your house."

He nodded and put the car into drive. "And roll your window down in case I start smelling too good or something."

Edward smiled. Brooding-hero Edward actually cracked a smile. I felt irrationally proud.

Edward whipped the car out of the parking lot and he drove very quickly down the empty road onto the highway. I peeked at the odometer, and saw that he was doing about 90 miles per hour. He rolled both our windows down and I leant my head on the window sill, letting my hair stream out behind me into the wind, taking in the exhilarating feeling of moving so quickly.

I don't know what Edward's reaction to this was, if he had one at all, because I had my eyes closed against the pressure of the wind. I didn't open them again until the car slowed down and began to drive over a rough gravel driveway.

We were in the woods, driving up a long gravel pathway. I glanced over at Edward only to see that he was staring at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing…" he trailed off. "You looked so peaceful on the drive over." His eyes were soft and there was a little smile on his lips, and my heart fluttered a little in my chest at his comment.

I quickly got over it when I looked at the house we had pulled to a stop in front of though. It was the house I had seen from my run the previous weekend. I glanced up to the left side of the house and saw a little cliff that looked like the one I had stumbled on during my run.

"What?" Edward asked, probably noticing my distraction.

"I saw this house on Saturday," I said. "I was on a run and I came out of the woods on that little cliff up there and I could see your house in the valley." Then another thought occurred to me. "That's why the woods were quiet, weren't they?"

Edward looked startled. "The woods were quiet?" he asked.

"Yeah. Don't animals not like vampires?" I said, as I pushed the car door open and got out.

Edward nodded slowly, and I felt a little bad. He was probably so used to keeping everything vampirical a deep, dark secret, and here I was, just throwing out references willy-nilly.

"You're very observant," he said quietly, leading me up to the front door of his house and going in.

I had expected a house with lots of white from reading the descriptions in the books, but reading and imagining something and then actually seeing it were two very different things, as I had learned from my weeks as Bella.

Most of the walls that must have been in the house originally were gone, and I could see all the way to the back of the house from my position right inside the front door. The whole back wall had been replaced with glass and I could look right out it to see a large green lawn that sloped down to the river that I had seen behind their house before.

The effect of essentially not having a wall meant that the house was very bright, even on a cloudy day like today. There was an enormous white staircase dominating the right side of the room, and all the walls, ceilings, and floors were done in shades of white. It was almost overwhelming in its brightness and I had to wonder if vampiric vision made the brightness more or less tolerable.

To the left of me was a raised section of floor (white wood) that held a massive grand piano (also white, of course). Standing on the raised floor next to the piano were Carlisle and Esme. Esme was the only vampire I hadn't seen yet and she was just as pale and gorgeous as the rest of them, but there was also something more human about her. She was about as tall as me, and she wasn't as angular as the others were. There was something soft and rounded to her form that reminded me of my own. She had caramel colored hair that curled softly a little past her shoulders, and she seemed to have a glow from within that the others didn't have.

I didn't see Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, or Emmett and I didn't know where they could be. I was a little surprised that Carlisle and Esme were waiting for us but the rest weren't, or how they seemed to have known I was coming, but then I remembered Alice's visions. I supposed she must have seen me and Edward speeding towards the house and instructed everyone to be ready.

They both smiled at me, but made no move to approach. "Hello," I said, and my voice seemed too loud for this almost magical house. "I'm Bella. I don't know how much Edward or Alice said about me, but here I am?" I ended my introduction on a question, mostly because now that I was here in the Cullen's house I wasn't totally sure what I was supposed to say.

Edward seemed to notice my unease because he smoothly took over. "She knows about us. She's clairvoyant. I thought it was best to discuss the situation together."

"I see," said Carlisle, the almost imperceptible raise of his eyebrows the only sign that he wasn't expecting this. I guess Alice must've just told them I was coming over but she didn't know what for. Probably because I still had no idea what I was going to say to a coven of vampires to explain myself. I certainly couldn't tell them that they were made up characters in a book I had read back in the real world, so I just hoped whatever lies I thought up were good enough for them.

Esme walked towards me with the most beautiful and kind smile I had ever seen and gestured towards the back of the house. "The kitchen is this way. Would you like a snack?"

"Oh, um, sure. Thanks," I said lamely, trailing after Esme as she led the way to the back of the house towards the kitchen.

When I stepped inside the kitchen I got my answer as to where the rest of the Cullen's were. Rosalie and Emmett were sitting side by side at the breakfast bar, his large arm wrapped around her smaller frame. Jasper was sitting straight-backed on the stool next to Rosalie, and Alice was standing next to him, her hands on his shoulders. Fleetingly, I thought it was funny that even sitting, Jasper was still a couple inches taller than Alice standing.

Alice immediately flitted over to me, a little too fast to pass as human. "Hi, Bella," she said, perkily. "I'm Alice," she introduced herself, before going in for a hug.

"Oh, hi," I said, shooting a look at Edward. I was not used to the touchy-feely hugging thing, especially with someone like Alice, who I really didn't know at all. Edward did not seem inclined to help me out though, just hiding a grin until Alice ended the hug.

"Oh, wow," she said, leaning back. "You do smell good."

"Alice, what are you…" Rosalie started to say, with a hint of panic in her voice.

"It's okay," she said, "Bella already knows."

Rosalie looked livid. "What do you mean, 'Bella knows?'" she said to Alice in a quiet but forceful tone. "Bella knows what?"

"About us. That we're vampires," Esme said calmly. As you can imagine, that did not at all relax Rosalie. She rounded on Edward this time, yelling "You have known this _human_ for a _week! _Seven days, and you thought it was alright to tell her our biggest secret?"

To be honest, I totally understood Rosalie's anger, because that's what it looked like. And seriously, if Edward had actually told me (or Bella) that he was a vampire after only knowing me for a week he would be an idiot.

"I didn't tell her," Edward said angrily, at the same time Alice cried out "No, it isn't like that, it's okay!"

Seeing them gang up on Rosalie like that, especially when she didn't know what was going on, made me feel pretty uncomfortable. I know what it's like to have people not listen to you and to gang up on you. "I already knew," I said. "No one told me, it's just something I know. I've always known. I'm clairvoyant." I'd read enough young adult fiction to know that being clairvoyant was kind of like having premonitions of the future except there were no visions, it was just like having knowledge about things dropped into your head. It seemed as good an explanation as any as to why I would know about vampires.

Rosalie still seemed a little angry, but I didn't think it was directed at me so much anymore. "Edward thought I should talk to you all about it since my knowledge affects all of you."

Carlisle came forward then. "I suggest we all sit down, and let Bella explain what all she knows about us and then decide how this knowledge will affect our lives and hers."

There weren't enough seats for all eight of us in the kitchen so I followed everyone back through the house until we were in the living room again. Emmett settled into the middle of the big white sofa, with one arm around Rosalie and the other resting behind Jasper. Alice perched on the arm of the sofa, holding hands with Jasper. Carlisle and Esme sat down in one of the two loveseats, leaving me and Edward to the other one.

"Well," I said, looking around the room at all the Cullens. "There are some things I just know, and the fact that you are vampires is one of them."

That was a very brief description for a very complicated topic, and I heard Rosalie make a huff of annoyance.

"What other things do you know?" Carlisle asked gently.

"Ok, well, I know that vampires are a real thing. And that some vampires have gifts that are supposedly linked to the strongest traits a vampire had in their human life. So like mind reading, seeing the future, emotion manipulation or whatever it is you do," I said, gesturing to Edward, Alice, and Jasper in turn as I named their powers. "And I know you don't kill people, which I think is pretty neat. And also way better for your eyes. Golden eyes are way prettier than red eyes in my opinion. Not that I've ever actually seen any vampires with red eyes before, but I can't imagine it's attractive.

"Also I know what happened to everyone. Like what your human lives were like and what happened to everyone and how you all ended up like this."

"What do you mean, you know about our human lives?" asked Alice after I finished my somewhat wordy explanation that, to be perfectly honest, still did not do justice to the amount of knowledge I had about this strange world I had found myself in.

I definitely didn't want to tell the Cullens that their lives were a book and I was from some alternate dimension and had died? I guess? And then somehow ended up here in the body of someone I was not because that sounded too crazy even for a group of vampires to believe. So I modified.

"I guess the best way to explain it is that it's like reading a book, or watching a movie in my mind. Over a period of time, new information just kind of appears in my brain, and then I know it. And like reading a book, some of the information goes a little fuzzy or I forget it if I don't use it in a long time. It's been about five years since I started to know about vampires."

"What is the extent to which you are familiar with our human lives?" This question was from Carlisle.

"Ok, well for instance with you, I know that you were born in England sometime in the 1600s. Your father was a preacher, but one of the really scary ones who killed a lot of people under the pretense that they were monsters. And I know you didn't really want to go along with that but you kind of had to because of the time period and you just did what your family did, right?

But you were too good at hunting monsters because you accidentally found a coven of real vampires, and then one like, tried to kill you? But didn't? I'm actually not really clear on that part because that vampire definitely had to know that you weren't dead and that you would become a vampire but he still totally left you which is frowned upon because newborns are so crazy and hard to control.

And then you became a vampire and tried to kill yourself but it didn't work because you guys are basically invincible. You tried to starve yourself rather than eat people which is _super _admirable by the way, because from what I've heard the bloodlust is ridiculous. And then you found deer and ate them instead of people and then blah blah blah, Volturi happened somewhere in there, you met a bunch of vampires, you turned Edward because his mom asked you to, you met Esme a couple times, turned her, turned Rosalie, turned Emmett, Alice and Jasper joined the family, blah blah blah, the pact not to eat people with the Quileute tribe, and here we are today. The end."

Carlisle looked a little shell shocked at all the information about his past that I, a total stranger, had just thrown at him.

"So I know a lot," I said lamely when it looked like no one else really knew what to say. The thought also occurred to me that normally a human who knew about vampires had to either be turned into a vampire basically right away or else be killed to prevent the human world from finding out about them. I _really _didn't want to become a vampire. Not for another 10 years year at least. I didn't _think_ that it would be a problem based on how Bella's life had gone in the books and it had taken her so long to be changed even though she really wanted it, but I still felt as though I should mention my wishes to the Cullens, just in case.

"Also I'm aware of the Volturi law or whatever saying that all humans who know about vampires have to be turned or killed, and I'm super not into that. Becoming a vampire is a huge decision and I'm 17 years old and definitely do not feel equipped to make that kind of decision, so I'd like to stay human for a while, if everyone here is cool with that. I promise not to tell any humans about you."

"I think we're safe with her." This quiet, monotone comment came from Jasper, and let me tell you, it was quite a surprise to hear Jasper out of everyone speaking up in my defense. In the books Bella and Jasper hadn't really had any kind of relationship. Based solely on Book-Bella I had been expecting either Alice or Edward to come to my defense.

Rosalie turned on Jasper. "What do you mean, we're safe with her? She doesn't just know about us, she knows about the Volturi, about the wolves, about basically everything. How can someone who poses that much of a threat be allowed to live?"

"Rosalie!" Esme said sharply. "She's right here." Turning to me she continued, "How long have you had your visions dear?"

I had read the Twilight books for the first time when I was in middle school, and that seemed as safe an answer as any to stick with. "When I was around 12," I said. Rosalie scared me shitless, but I still had to stick up for myself. So I turned to her and said "I've known about vampires for five years and I haven't said anything. I'm not going to. Besides, who would believe me?"

"She won't say anything," Jasper spoke up again. "I can tell."

"I think she's ok too," said Alice, smiling over at me. "Even though Edward can't read your mind, Jasper can still feel your emotions and I can still have visions of you, so we'll know if you try anything." The last part was said with just a hint of warning, and I internally shivered at the reminder that these were creatures of the night and could kill me so easily.

"I think this whole situation is extremely fascinating," Carlisle said. "It's so interesting to get to know people with different powers."

Emmett opened his mouth for the first time since I'd entered the Cullen's house. "Hey man, the more the merrier. Do you like video games?"

I laughed. "I love video games and trashy TV."

Emmett laughed and opened his mouth again, but whatever he had been about to say was cut off by a loud, drawn-out growl from my stomach. I immediately turned bright red.

Upon hearing my stomach's plea for food, Esme jumped up from the loveseat. "Oh my goodness, we've kept you here for so long, you must be so hungry. What do you like to eat? We have plenty of food in the kitchen."

I also got up from my seat and followed Esme to the kitchen, Edward walking beside me and the rest of the family trailing behind us.

Esme had not been kidding about having food in the kitchen. She had opened up the cupboards and fridge to let me pick something out to eat and there was a ton of stuff to choose from. There was pasta in the cupboards and fresh meat, veggies, and fruit in the fridge. There was even a selection of drinks, including orange and apple juice as well as cans of soda and a gallon of milk. I was assured by Alice that there was also ice cream in the freezer.

"I don't mean to be rude, but why does a family of vampires have a fully stocked kitchen?" I asked. "I mean, it's not like you can eat it."

"Well, it started out as a way to not look suspicious," Esme said. "It's a small town, and people would notice if I wasn't out and about in town and at the grocery store, especially because I don't have a job and have five teenagers to take care who obviously need to eat. But it felt so wasteful just getting rid of everything that wasn't easy to donate so I started to cook. I donate almost everything I make to the homeless shelter and soup kitchen so that the food goes to good use."

"That's so admirable," I said, suddenly feeling very emotional that Esme, who had so much, used her considerable wealth and amount of free time to give back to those who were unable to take care of themselves.

"Are you alright?" Edward asked me suddenly, gently laying his hand on my arm over my shirt sleeve.

"What? Why?" I asked, feeling a little confused.

"Your emotions are all…" here Edward trailed off and gestured his hands to indicate that they were going a little crazy. Of course. Jasper's ability to recognize what people are feeling.

"Oh, yeah," I said. "I just know what it's like to not always have enough to eat. You're truly helping people," I said to Esme.

She smiled gently before asking me what I'd like to eat. I settled on the relatively simple spaghetti and meatballs despite Esme's attempts to make something fancier. Even still, by the time we were done in the kitchen the table was set with spaghetti and meatballs, a salad, and Carlisle had pulled a pound cake out of some cupboard and placed it on the dining room table.

The scene at the dinner table when all eight of us sat down was very funny, when you took into account that of all eight seats at the table, there was only one place setting, one glass of water, and all the food was squarely in front of me.

Despite me being the only one who could even stomach the food Esme had prepared family size amounts and I wasn't embarrassed to admit that I would be asking to take the food home to me and Charlie given that neither of us were big on cooking.

As I tried to daintily eat my salad (but let's be real, I was basically shoveling the delicious food into my face) I tried to strike up a conversation so that I didn't have seven vampires watching me eat.

However, me being me, I immediately went for the big questions instead of starting out with polite small talk. "What was it like when you realized what being a vampire was actually about? Like with the sparkling in sunlight instead of bursting into flames? And the never sleeping and being super attractive? Oh my god and the invincibility? That's gotta be pretty rad."

There was a small pause before anyone answered and I could see that again they were still trying to process how much of their deep dark secret I already knew.

"Well it was pretty easy for me," Alice said. "With the visions I could see other vampires and I got used to it really easily."

"It was probably the toughest adjustment for Carlisle," Esme said. "Alice had her visions, Jasper had his creator, and the rest of us had Carlisle to teach us. Carlisle didn't have anybody."

"I was initially displeased when I learned that vampires were much harder to incapacitate than I had previously thought. It was difficult at first. To be honest, it was sleeping that I missed the most. I felt exhausted, not physically, but mentally, just being awake all the time. But it's been so long now and the details of my human life have become so blurry that I no longer miss anything from it." Carlisle said.

I nodded. "It's pretty insane that you managed to hold off from blood from so long by yourself. It's the coolest thing that you didn't have anyone telling you what was going on, no one taking care of you, and the bloodlust going through you and you've never drank human blood. Man, everyone else has slipped up even with you to help them. Except Rosalie of course, which like damn. Mad props."

"What?"

This was from Rosalie. She sounded surprised. Fuck. Yes, look at me, the dumb human who's putting way too much of her knowledge of vampires on display.

With no way to backtrack, I decided to forge ahead. "Sorry, I know this is totally like an invasion of privacy that I know so much about you guys. But I think it's really impressive that you have never had a drop of human blood before. I've heard that in the newborn phase it's pretty much impossible to abstain on your own—" I cut myself off abruptly. I had been about to bring up that Rosalie had been around plenty of human blood a couple years into her vampirism when she found Emmett, but I really didn't want the Cullens to know the depth of knowledge I had about them, at least not any more than I had already given away.

"Oh." Rosalie said simply. "I see." Her face remained expressionless but I couldn't help but feel that she didn't hate me as much as she had earlier today.

The conversation died off for a bit there and the eight of us sat in uncomfortable silence, the only noise being the scrape of my fork off my plate as I shoveled spaghetti into my mouth and my (admittedly noisy) chewing. When I felt like I couldn't take the silence anymore I blurted out "What's the worst fight you guys have ever had?"

Emmett started laughing as soon as I got the question out of my mouth. "Oh my God. When Rose and I got together, on our first honeymoon we were pretty oblivious to how we were affecting other people and their things."

Here Edward interrupted with a quiet grumble before Emmett continued.

"And Edward here has always been pretty into the piano. So, he had this super nice white baby grand, and Rose and I might've, possibly, by complete accident, totally destroyed it."

I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing, looking between Emmett and Edward. Edward was looking at the ceiling grumbling to himself, but Emmett wasn't done yet.

"But wait, that's not even the best part! When Edward found out, he was really mad, and he came and confronted us. And do you know what he said?"

"No, but you have to tell me!" I said excitedly, at the same time Edward started to say "I don't really think that's necessary."

"Shush," Emmett said, waving a hand at Edward. "He said, and I quote, -" and here Emmett schooled himself into a perfect imitation of Edward– "Emmett's a newborn and can't be expected to control himself. But _you, _Rosalie! I think you destroyed my piano _on purpose!"_

"Oh my God, that's hilarious," I said, turning to look at Edward. He was looking anywhere that wasn't any of us, and I swear that if vampires could blush Edward would have been the color of a tomato.

"It was such a long time ago," he said, turning to address Rosalie. "And I wasn't really that put out. It was really getting to be time to replace it anyways."

Rosalie smiled at Edward. "It's okay, Eddie."

"Oh, don't call me Eddie," he muttered under his breath.

"What about you, Alice?" I asked, not wanting to ignore the vampire that became Bella's best friend.

Jasper was the one who answered. "Alice doesn't fight about things that happen, she fights about things that she sees happening, and then this confuses all of us so much that most of the time we don't even end up fighting about what she saw anyway."

Alice grinned up at her husband's face. "Well, he's not wrong," she said.

At this point I was done eating, and just sitting at a table with seven vampires, enjoying their company. I opened my mouth to ask them more questions, but all that came out was a massive yawn.

"Oh, wow, I'm so tired," I said, my automatic response to myself whenever I yawned.

"Oh, dear," Esme said, with motherly concern. "We've kept you here for such a long time, you must be wanting to go home and sleep!"

"Yeah, I should probably be getting home soon, I didn't tell Charlie I was going out and I don't know when he's gonna start worrying."

"Let me pack your food up for you and then Edward will drive you home," Esme said kindly, getting up to pack up the excess of food the family had made for me.

I thanked her and stood up, moving into the kitchen. Alice darted up and gave me a quick hug goodbye. "See you soon," she said, before flitting off somewhere with Jasper, who nodded a goodbye. Rosalie and Emmett also made themselves scarce, Rosalie with no acknowledgement, and Emmett with a booming "See you later, human girl!"

Carlisle and Edward were the only ones who followed me to the kitchen, where Esme was already done packing all the leftover food into cute little Tupperware containers. "It was lovely meeting you, Bella," she said sweetly, handing me the food and moving into the arms of her husband.

"Thank you for coming, Bella," Carlisle said formally. "It is nice to know that our secret is safe with you."

"It was really great meeting you two, as well," I said, remembering my manners.

Edward and I walked back to his car with only a minor bit of tripping from me. I was quiet as we pulled out of the long private drive onto the main road, expecting Edward to just drive me back to the school where my truck was, but instead he asked "What's your address?"

"Oh, um… thanks, but can you just take me back to the school? I need to pick up my truck and drive it home so I can get to school tomorrow. Since it's only Monday and all."

"Don't worry about that," Edward said. "I can just pick you up in the morning and drive you to school."

"Oh my god, no!" I said. Charlie would notice that the truck wasn't there when I got home and it wasn't louder than snoring whale, and if he didn't notice tonight, he would almost certainly notice tomorrow morning when he left for work at the ass-crack of dawn. No, I certainly didn't want to deal with his questions. Or the questions that all the kids at Forks High would ask when I rolled up tomorrow with Edward Cullen, a notoriously unfriendly person, as my chauffer.

Edward looked slightly wounded at my response. "No offense, I just don't want to deal with Charlie's questions." I said. "He literally gave me the truck a week ago, I don't want to have to explain why I suddenly don't have it."

"Well that's fine," Edward said. "You can just give me your keys and I can have Alice or Rose drop the truck off tonight so it's there in the morning when he wakes up."

"That's sweet, but totally unnecessary. Just drop me off at the school, I can drive it home myself."

"No, it's no trouble at all," Edward said. "I just don't want you driving around when it's this dark."

Excuse me? I mean, ok, I knew he meant well, and honestly, I should've expected this from him at some point, given his treatment of Bella in the books, but I do not need to be taken care of. And I know how to drive at night!

"Seriously, dude? Thanks for your concern and all, but I'm driving my own car home. I know how to drive at night. And it's not your call. Take me to the school."

Edward looked like he wanted to argue some more, and had a very put-upon look on his face that I was not a fan of, but ten minutes later he pulled into the school parking lot.

"Thank you for taking me to meet your family, and for the food, and for taking me back to my car," I said as he pulled into the spot next to my old truck.

"Of course," he said. "Please be careful driving home."

I cracked a smile. "Don't worry, I promise I'm a good driver. And this old truck can take a lot."

I was about to get out of the car when a thought occurred to me. "Can I ask you a question?" I asked Edward.

He didn't say anything, but nodded his assent, so I charged ahead.

"Why did you come back?" He looked startled and a little confused, so I elaborated.

"From Alaska. You knew I was your singer. Hell, I know you almost killed me that first day. I know I'm just a human and in the grand scheme of a vampire's life I can't mean that much, but I'm not ready to die yet."

The look of confusion turned to one of guilt, and Edward seemed lost for words. He opened his mouth as though he was going to speak, but nothing came out. Even though I was totally within my rights as a human who wanted to continue living to question if Edward could control himself around me, I felt bad, and it was a struggle to stay silent long enough to let him answer my question.

"I know you are my singer, and it would probably be better for both of us if I stayed away from you. And this might sound unfair, but Forks is my home, and I was here first. I will not be pushed out of my home just because you smell good. I have had 100 years to get used to being around humans, and I know that I can control myself." He stopped for a second, and I thought he was done speaking before he added, "And Alice has promised to watch for visions of me… hurting you… and will be able to stop me if it looks like I'm headed in that direction."

"Thank you for explaining," I said. He was right, he had been here first, and I didn't think that he should have to uproot his entire life if he thought he would be able to control his. "And thank you for the food and the ride tonight. See you later."

I drove home with no mishaps, and I didn't see Edward trailing me, even though I was almost positive that he had. Charlie was in the living room watching TV when I walked in. He asked me how my day was and what I had been doing after school. On reflex, I lied, and told him Jessica Stanley had invited me over to study together and have dinner with her family. He seemed satisfied with my answer, and I went upstairs. As I was getting ready for bed, I thought over the course of the day. I was very relieved that the Cullens were aware that I knew about them already, and that they seemed to accept my lie that I was clairvoyant. At least I didn't have to keep pretending not to know anything about them.

To be perfectly honest though, I was struggling to see where actual Bella's attraction to Edward came from. Was he _insanely _attractive? _Oh, yeah._ But so were all the other Cullens, and if I had to pick the most attractive one I would go with Rosalie every time. And his behavior in the car ride back had turned me off a lot. I knew he was protective of Bella when I read the books, but it had always felt deserved. Like, Bella was clumsy and disaster-prone. She _needed _Edward to protect her. I didn't. Obviously to a vampire, I was going to seem extremely breakable. But I'm a pretty average person. I can take care of myself. I made it through seventeen years and only died once. Maybe. I'm still a little unclear on how I even ended up in the _Twilight_ universe in the first place.

I got in bed with thoughts of Edward on my mind, wondering if I was supposed to fall in love with him because that's what Bella did, or if I would be able to find love elsewhere. I was asleep almost immediately.

The next morning, I woke up to a fine layer of snow dusted all over the yard, my car, and the road. I went downstairs to see that, once again, Charlie had already left for work. I ate a quick bowl of cereal and drank some orange juice. When I exited the house and was walking down the driveway to my truck, I discovered that the beautiful snow was covering a deadly layer of ice. After a treacherous walk down the driveway, I made it to my car in one piece. I was a little nervous about driving on the icy roads today, but my nervousness melted away when I caught a glimpse of something silver on my tires. Charlie must've gotten up early to put snow chains on my tires. I felt my throat constrict. I wasn't used to people caring about me, and now this man who thought he was my father cared about me.

I drove to school very carefully. The snow chains helped me navigate all the black ice, but it still paid to be careful. I must've gotten to school pretty early, as there were very few other cars parked there already. As I got out of my truck I noticed that not even the Cullens had arrived yet.

I walked carefully around to the back of my truck, wanting to hold onto it for support as long as I could before I had to venture out onto the ice on my own. Even though I wouldn't consider myself as extraordinarily clumsy as Bella Swan was, it was still ice, and I was only human. Just as I was reaching the end of my truck, I heard an odd sound. It was painful and screeching, like nails on a chalkboard, but magnified by about a thousand.

I turned around to see where the source of the sound was coming from. It was a car, really a van, careening towards me incredibly fast. The only thing I had time to think was "Oh no, where's Edward? He's supposed to save me" before the car was on top of me. I felt the greatest, most blinding pain I had ever experienced. It felt as though someone had taken all my organs, and tried to shove them right out the back of me. I could very vaguely hear screaming, and then everything went black.

**AN: Enjoy that cliff hanger, it's probably going to be a while before I get the next one out since I currently don't have a plan for this story, I'm just making stuff up as I go along. Please write a review and let me know what you think of this story!**


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